I think that I know my métier

Last weekend, I was riding my sister’s bicycle to the bookstore and if I had written that sentence three and a half years ago, when I was still a student in the American university school system, I would have laughed.

Only dorky foreign exchange students ride bicycles, silly. 

Ding, ding!  Attention!  Passing on zee left!   

People, riding a bicycle is SO ROCK. Oh, the pleasure I derive, wheeling down the rue de Rivoli, the wind in my hair (you do NOT wear a helmet in Paris, that is something only dorky Americans do, and if my friend’s father reads this-- Frank Christy, a.k.a. Mr. Safety who, concerned with his college-aged daughter's solitary drive to Jacksonville, FL once convinced her to make the trek WITH A FAKE DOG IN HER BACKSEAT-- Mr. Christy, you are flipping out about the helmet thing; that is very kind, and it is going to be okay.  Meanwhile, my own parents are probably shrugging and saying, “No helmet?  Eh!  We've got a couple more where that one came from.”)

But yes, scarf ‘round neck, trench coat of cuteness, hair unencumbered of helmet.  But the best, THE BEST, JERRY is when the leaves crunch under your wheels.  Or maybe the best is the gabump, gabump, gabump of riding over wooden walking bridges.  Yee gads, it’s a tossup.  Because life is candy and the sun is a bowl of butter when I’m riding my bicycle and you’d better not kill my buzz or I will pluck your toe-hairs slowly.

Which is pretty painful, fyi. 

So I’m feeling downright kicky as I park my bicycle (ding! ding!) behind the bookstore W.H. Smith last weekend.

ENTER STAGE LEFT:  bloodless mouth breather in blue uniform

“C’est interdit de se garer ici, Madame.”

Having seen bicycles parked on all the surrounding streets, I find this a bit curious and express this, genuinely. “Oh?  Why?”

“Because I am a policeman and I say so, that’s why.”

Blinking, I give him a moment to add some sort of ADULT explanation-- “Midgets in orange jumpsuits will beat the baby squirrels if you park your bike on rue du Mont Thabor, Miss” would have been an improvement-- but instead he just adjusts his little blue hat and says, “I think that I know my métier.” 

I think. that I know. my métier. 

Sir, you are wearing the hat of a bellboy. 

“Can I park it on rue Cambon?”
“Of course.”
”Rue de Rivoli?”
“But yes.”
“Rue Saint-Honoré?”
“Obviously.”

I rattle off a few more surrounding streets waiting for some explanation befitting a man over thirteen, even if it was, “I don’t make the laws ma’am.”  Anything but I THINK THAT I KNOW MY METIER. 

“So it’s just rue du Mont Thabor that’s forbidden?”  Because 'you say so' you bloodless prick, spawn of Satan, thank you very much for ruining my bicycle buzz now would you please mind burning in hell?

He gives an affirmative nod of his little pillbox hatted-head and all I can think to say is, “Oh.”

Then I turn around, wheeling my bicycle in shock, wondering, did that just happen?  Did I just go from being stoned on life to popping a blood vessel in 30 seconds?  Will living in France cause me permanent neurological damage?  Did Adam Gopnick pay him to say that “métier” thing?  Can we get a team from Johns Hopkins to take some DNA samples of this perfect specimen of a functionary alien prick, BECAUSE I’M PRETTY SURE EVEN NASA WOULD WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES THIS GUY TICK.

Comments

[EarlGrayHot]

Sending {{{HUGS}}} your way and imaginary smacks upside the head to the jerk-face.

AMB

[Gina]

I hope you gared yourself there anyway. Here in Lyon there's a program where you sign up and then can take bikes for free around town called Velo'v that's crazy popular. Now you see everyone, from kids to older well-dressed gentlemen riding around town on the signature red bikes. It's very sweet, actually.

[R J Keefe]

Here I was, about to compliment you on having absorbed the fact that, in France, one has a métier, not a profession. Well, I will anyway, because you will never forget it now, after your encounter with the spawn of Satan.

[Elizabeth]

oh their composition is pretty simple really, it's not a carbon-based life form (as you guessed). Non, la gendarmerie is composed of creatures formed from pigeon poo.

[DDJ]

How dare you question the wisdom of the French state! When you questioned his determination, you questioned all of France.

:)

[Luisa]

Heh - I'm a longtime lurker, delurking because this entry is hysterical, and grrrr such a perfect story about the maddening frustration that can befall you around every corner in France.

[toto]

C'est la proximité de votre ambassade, très chère citoyenne mi-américaine, qui rend les flics de cette rue si bornés.

[Aimee]

Gina: What a rad program!!

[La Dauphine]

The problem with the French 'metier' is that you choose it when you're, like, 14 and usually it's your parents who choose it for you. Can you IMAGINE studying Paris parking procedures since you're 14?? By the time you're 35 the frustration of living someone else's life has driven you bonkers. You're only sense of pride comes from clinging to the fact that you 'know your metier.'

So sorry he ruined your biking buzz. But you can thank him later after you've signed your book deal. ;)

[La Dauphine]

By the way - "Will living in France cause me permanent neurological damage?"

Priceless!!

[kassi]

You should have informed him of his bellboy hatted stature. And when it comes to hats YOU know YOUR metier.

[Ale]

oh that is so agrivating!!!!
-so what did you do? ride around the block once, (wait for bellboy to go away) and park right at the initial spot? i hope so!

[meg]

Excellent post... and yes, that man is a big tool.

[Gloria]

I love it. "Because I say so."

I try to use that all the time, and it works because people just blink at you like you're an idiot, and then they realise that there's no reasoning with the unreasonable. Which I am only sometimes. When I want to get my way.

[Moose]

When I ride a bike, I tend to ride it into trees. God forbid I ever do that with my car. But my real point is: that blog post, it was funny. Very funny. You're a lovely writer.

[Lauren]

Parisian pedestrian rage is the worse.

[Joy]

coquette ~ someone really needs to give you a book deal..i am so entertained by your stories!

[Amber]

Stumbled onto your site today and have been reading back through some of the posts. You're delightful, and yes I do hate you because you live in France. :)

[Neil]

Ok, let me first say that I love the French, I really do. I'm not one of those Americans that changed the name of my French fries, French toast, or French kiss.

But NO HELMET while riding a bicycle in the city? I know... I know... I sound like my own Jewish mother... but the French like to smoke a lot of really bad cigarettes also, right?

If the French jump off the top of the Eiffel Tower, does that mean you have to also?

End of rant.

[Coquette]

Toto, your point that it's the proximity of the American embassy-- that's really funny and could very well be true.

Neil, stop--what's the yiddish for nagging?--kabitizing me! Now I'm going to have to post a picture of me in helmet with the title "Are you happy now Neil?" Oy.

[Jecca]

How infuriating! Too bad Auntie M's back in the States -- you could have commiserated. This story reminded me of her "kids not allowed to play in park" posts.

[Sedulia]

Well, Coquette, I actually know why you are not allowed to park your bicycle on rue Mont-Thabor. It's because it backs onto the American Consulate. It's new that people can't even drive down that part of the street any more, though.

[Poulette]

What I'd like to know is: did you or didn't you pluck his toe hairs in the end?

[Nan]

How well do I know these people. They're everywhere. Especially in any kind of French administrations. If you've ever had to buy a stamp/go to the fourrière (dunno the word in English)to fetch your car (yes, they do that to cars, too)/go to your local city hall to have a new passport made, then you know what I mean. 9 times out of ten, the person in front of you is one of them (the last one is there by accident, and anyway, s/he will soon have a nervous breakdown). And their unique goal in life is to turn yours into HELL.

But here's the truth: they pretend they're French, but believe me, they're not. Actually, they are aliens who try to infiltrate French society and take control of the whole country.

How do I know? Because the French are famously good-looking, smart, hip, tolerant and funny. Like me, exactly.

By the way, I loooove your blog...

[sarai]

oh how i miss the french and their silly ways. no parking your bike on a street 3 feet away from a street where it's perfectly ok to park your bike. no sitting laying or touching any of the grass in any of the parks. and don't you just love their whistles?
truely the product of satan on earth.

[Dagny]

I had a bike when I was in college. It was the only way that one could make it from one side of the campus to the other in ten minutes (often the amount of time I had to get from one class to the next). I miss my bike.

[Kevin_M]

Actually, a cop would have said the exact same thing in New York (except, uh, in English). Here in London, he would have flinched in fear when you talked back and then wandered away without saying another word...

[Coquette]

Sedulia, you have GOT to be kidding me? The cop could have had a good zinger then! This all seems so pre-determined...

[Sedulia]

He may not even know! The cops in Paris tend to be clueless rubes. Cops who are actually from Paris know people and don't end up on the street. It always makes me laugh when I see tourists asking them for directions, only to have the cop puzzle over the map along with them.

[tsop]

ah yes, of course, the europeans. they just speed off in their vespas or bikes or whatever and their hair blows perfectly in the wind and when something bad does happen like falling off or something, they just pick themselves up and go "ciao!" or "quel chance" or something wonderfully non-embarrassing and seemingly still cool.

i'll be in paris next year. maybe i'll see you around, haha. of course i will recognize you by your lovely shoes. you can recognize me by the blur that ran by b/c it's late yet again for something probably not too important.

i heart your blog. huggles --tsop

[brando]

great story, coquette. it was em forster right up to the toe plucking. and then joseph heller from there on out.

[Nan]

tsop> If only... We have our share of Britney Spares (sorry, Spears...)look-alikes here as well. And they're not American. Bad taste seems to be an international language... Hope you'll enjoy Paris, though. It really is a lovely city. Just don't pay attention to our silly ways... You'll only have to deal with them for a certain amount of time - unlike us who, on the other hand, have to cope with them everyday. There is a downside to everything!

[Claire]

even WITH your bicycle experience which made me laugh very much I would STILL much rather be there than HERE, in fact I would probably have found the bellboy hat charming and his jobsworth demeanour endearing so detemined am I to LOVE Paris and HATE London at the moment. (I'm allowed to hate it I was born here!) Thank you for keeping my Paree loving alive! Good luck with Chicago x

[Eliza]

If living in France doesn,t give you neurological damage,cycling without a helmet certainly could!I,ve spent last five years looking rather silly with said "Casque" perched on head on trips to school with kids but 'tho I,m practically the only person wearing one no one has ever said anything.However my French husband after practically 40yrs of wind blowing in hair cycling finally bought one(friend of ours thrown off bike onto head recently badly injured)You,d never guess the upset it caused at school gates.Obviously they had not taken me seriously being amere Anglo-Saxon but they seemed to take it as areal affront to their Liberté that a French person would ever dream of such an act!So you,re in good company if you want to ride helmetless but I,ll keep mine thank you very much!!!P.S age probably has alot to do with this ,helmets didn,t exist when Iwas young and you never think of being in an accident until at least 30yrs of age or when you have first child. Happy cycling!!!!!!

[Lesley]

And they say "il n'y a pas de sous-métier". Oh, and the only girls that wear cycle helmets in my part of France are the Mormon missionaries.

[CKay]

Too funny, I love this post! Your alien in blue reminds me of an airport security guard at CDG who absolutely refused to hand check my husband's professional speed photographic film (ie speed over 1600)and insisted on running it through the x ray machine, because it "ees my job". After much discussion, in french (with me) and then in english (with my husband), my husband replied to him "Who ARE you, Napoleon Bonaparte??" Obviously, this comment didn't do us any favors, other then bringing the arrival of yet another airport policeman.

[La Dauphine]

I have to read this post again and again because it's so funny and so true - the highs and lows of Paris life. And CKay - that Napoleon comment! Your husband! - quel culot!! :)

[Mac]

I'm embarassed to have to say this, but it's actually JohnS Hopkins (check out www.jhu.edu, should you doubt my sincerity). Nitpicking, you might say (or not, how should one know, what you would say, after five minutes of reading your blog), but imprecision is the root of all evil, as they say. I think.

[CKay]

Mac - Apparently you know your 'metier' too...Grammer Police? Spell Checker Absolut? Do you have a blue hat? I absolutely cannot believe that after reading this lovely blog, your only comment is that our heroine, La Coquette, forgot an S? WTF! To err is human, intolerance is the root of all evil.

[Coquette]

CKay, I actually wrote him/her? to say thank you--I used to be a fact checker at Chicago magazine so you would *think* that I knew my metier.

[Coquette]

(But thank you for being an allied force, CKay...)

[ering]

I have just recently started reading your blog and can i say so refreshing! i hope you did pluck the sibords toe hairs, very very slowly.
Wearing a helmet, oh yes very dorky because once you get to your destination what have you left your self with nasty hat hair. having being seen in a helmet and with a helmet head to much to baer.Thanks for another great blog Coquette.

[Papotine]

Trop drôle !! je me suis bien marrée ! mais attention il faut mettre un CASQUE, les Parisiens conduisent comme des fous !